The Senate Intelligence Committee held two open hearings Thursday, to address the active measures used by Russia against the U.S. Our country was attacked during the primary and general election cycles, and the attacks continue to this day. Senator Marco Rubio said today that he and his staff were targets of social media attacks twice – once in July, when he announced he would run again for the Senate, and yesterday. Rubio said the attacks came from computers using Internet addresses in Russia.

It is clear from the testimony at the Senate hearings that the U.S. was, and is, under attack for at least a year before the 2016 general election. The attack involved hacks and weaponized information dumps that were carefully timed to help the Trump campaign and hurt the Clinton campaign.Another active measures tactic that is continuing is the use of fake news generated by agents of the Russian government, which are then elevated in popularity using computer-generated personas called “bots.” Bots are algorithm-created, fake social media accounts. With the help of bots, a fake news story can be shared thousands of times to bring the story higher in lists that are then accessed by legitimate news sites, and can be promoted as true erroneously by unwitting users. Sometimes the story is revealed as false, and legitimate news sites print a correction or retraction, but by then the story has traveled around the world and many real people who read it never see the corrected story.So, how is this done? It is surprisingly easy. Scott Pelley on “60 Minutes” promoted a Twitter message with the help of a consultant and the purchase of 5,000 bots from a Russian website at the cost of a few hundred dollars. Pelley wrote a message and the bots elevated his message with more than 4,000 retweets.According to the website searchsecurity.techtarget.com:“A botnet (also known as a zombie army) is a number of Internet computers that, although their owners are unaware of it, have been set up to forward transmissions (including spam or viruses) to other computers on the Internet.” The infected computer is called a zombie or bot.

Computer-generated Twitter, Facebook, or other social media accounts can be created to seem like Americans, even from as far away as Saint Petersburg. Clinton Watts, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute Program on National Security, explained at the first Senate hearing today that demographic information from a certain area (like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, or Florida) can be mined to create plausible imitations of residents of that area, so the computer-generated personas appear to be real people.

In February, multiple news outlets reported that Paul Manafort’s daughter appears to have been the victim of a cyber attack that exposed a blackmail attempt on Manafort while he was serving as Donald Trump’s campaign chairman.The texts show that Ukrainian lawmaker Sergei Leschenko claimed to have evidence of Manafort’s business dealings with ousted Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych, and of a meeting between Trump and Yanukovych associate Serhiy Tulub.

(Photo Credit: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg/Getty Images )Now Manafort has a new scandal to worry about. The Associated Press reported exclusively Thursday that agents of the Treasury Department have obtained information relating to Manafort’s transactions at the Bank of Cyprus, according to a person familiar with the investigation, who was not authorized to speak publicly. The Treasury Department is pursuing an investigation into corruption Manafort may have been involved with in Ukraine.

Paul Manafort worked as campaign chairman for the Trump campaign from March until August of 2016. He was instrumental in shepherding the candidate through the critical time before, during, and after the Republican National Convention. He has also been a focus of the FBI investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign and administration coordinated with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 presidential campaign.

Manafort, active in the campaigns of Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bob Dole, has also lobbied on behalf of many dictators around the world. He has worked for guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi of Angola, Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, and Viktor Yanukovych, Russian-backed former leader of Ukraine.

Federal prosecutors have been interested in Manafort’s finances since it was discovered that a ledger belonging to Yanukovych contained an entry showing he had made secret payments to Manafort. The payments appear to have been made in 2009.

Cyprus is known to have been a haven for money laundering by Russian billionaires.

Manafort is not the only Trump team member with ties to the Bank of Cyprus. According to The Guardian, Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary, presided over a deal with Artem Avetisyan, a Russian banker with ties to Vladimir Putin and Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, in 2015. At the time, Sberbank was under U.S. and European Union sanctions over Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

February 24, CNN reported that Chief of Staff Reince Priebus “asked the FBI to knock down media reports about communications between Russian officials and Trump associates.”

“We didn’t try to knock the story down. We asked them to tell the truth,” Press Secretary Sean Spicer told CNN late Thursday.

Photo credit: Getty​Longstanding procedures limit communications between the White House and the FBI regarding pending investigations.

Today, FBI director James Comey testified that the FBI is conducting an ongoing, active counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s influence into the U.S. 2016 elections, and any coordination between Russian officials and Trump team members.

Comey said in the hearing:"I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts. As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed."

Interfering in an active FBI investigation is against the law.

The Politico story from February can be found here.http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/reince-priebus-fbi-discussion-white-house-rules-236192

I think it is safe to say that this is the first of multiple days of hearings in the House. There were more questions than answers, and Director Comey did not answer many questions because of at least one ongoing investigation.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has a hearing scheduled for March 30, with a slightly different focus.

The focus of today's hearing was:

What actions did Russia undertake against the United States during the 2016 election campaign, and did anyone from a political campaign conspire in these activities?

Were the communications of officials or associates of any campaign subject to any kind of improper surveillance?

Who has leaked classified information?

It was clear from the questions asked that there is a sharp partisan divide on this committee. The key pieces of information gathered, in my estimation, were:

There was active interference in the U.S. election by Russia designed to help Donald Trump and to hurt Hilary Clinton. This fact was clearly agreed to by the two witnesses. Hacking into servers was done to both Republican and Democrat targets. Only information from Democrats was "weaponized" to influence voters.

There is an active, ongoing FBI counterintelligence investigation into members of the Trump campaign and their connections with Russian interference in the 2016 electon. Director Comey answered no questions that could influence the investigation. He did confirm that the investigation began in July or 2016.

President Obama did not, and could not have, ordered a wiretap of candidate Trump or Trump Tower. The British did not, and would not have, wiretap Trump or Trump Tower for President Obama.

Russia did not successfully hack individual voting machines in the U.S. There was hacking or attempted hacking into the voter registration rolls in some states.

Several of the Democratic representatives asked questions they knew could not be answered in an unclassified hearing, to get the questions and the issues into the public record.

Several of the Republican representatives pursued lines of questioning regarding leaks of classified material. Notably, Chairman Nunes asserted that the Steele dossier was leaked material. However, that document was never a government document and was not classified. The information leaked regarding the Steele dossier was that the incoming and outgoing presidents were both briefed on the contents of the dossier, in a two page summary provided at the end of an intelligence briefing they each received separately. Some members of Congress have suggested that the information may have been leaked by the White House. Once CNN broke the story that the dossier existed, Buzzfeed published it. The author of the dossier, ex-British MI6 officer Christopher Steele, may testify at the Senate hearing March 30.

The character of this hearing was uncomfortably partisan, with Democrats appearing to want to go on the record with names and dates of Trump team involvement with Russian officials, and the Republicans wanting to make a case for prosecuting leakers, including potentially members of the press and of the security agencies. It seemed clear to me that an independent investigation may be necessary to get to the bottom of the Trump=-Russia story, and to prevent foreign meddling in our elections in the future.

Names brought up by Democrats as possible players in the Trump-Russia hacking story (and potential witnesses at subsequent hearings) were:

Witnesses Comey and Rogers were specifically asked about Tweets that the President made beginning at 6:30 am (ET) the morning of the hearing. Comey and Rogers stated that they had not had time to read the Tweets and had no comment.

The first two listed witnesses in Monday's hearing are FBI Director James Comey and Director of National Intelligence Mike Rogers.

Here is a glossary of some of the terms that might come up during this hearing, which is the first hearing resulting from at least 5 Congressional investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 and possible involvement of members of the Trump campaign, transition team, and administration.

FISA - Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This law, passed in 1978, established the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review warrants related to national security. Warrants are drawn up in the National Security Agency at the request of an officer of one of the federal intelligence agencies. The target of the warrant must be a foreign power, the agent of a foreign power, orm in the case of a citizen or resident alien, that the target may be involved in the commission of a crime.

FARA - Foreign Agents Registration Act. This law, passed in 1938, requires that a person representing the interests of a foreign power in a political capacity disclose details regarding finances and activities.

Kompromat - compromising material about a politician or other public figure. Kompromat is used to blackmail or force loyalty from a victim.

Maskirovka – Russian military deception.

Mirror trading - a scheme of stock trading that can be used for laundering money. Mirror trades were used for years in schemes at Deutsche Bank, which was fined $629 million by regulators in the U.S and U.K. for trades carried out from 2011 to 2015. As Matt Levine of Bloomberg News explained, “some Russian entity would buy a chunk of Russian shares from Deutsche Bank's Moscow office for rubles, and an affiliated entity would sell the same shares to Deutsche Bank's London office for U.S. dollars, with the result that the web of entities moved rubles offshore and converted them into dollars. It's a simple transaction, using the stock trades as just a mechanical tool for the money transfer.” https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-31/mirror-trades-and-two-for-one-rules

Wikileaks - an international organization that publishes leaked information from anonymous sources. The website was launched in Iceland in 2006. Many U.S. intelligence experts believe that, after American creditors refused to do business with them in 2010, founder Julian Assange turned to the Russian Federation for financing.

Guccifer 2.0 - the persona of a hacker that stole information from the server of the Democratic National Committee. The information was then released on Wikileaks. Some of the documents appeared to be cobbled together, including portions of news articles and disinformation. Most U.S. intelligence experts believe the persona to be multiple intelligence operatives of the Russian GRU.

GRU - Russian Federation military intelligence service.

FSB - Russian Federation foreign intelligence service.

NSA - U.S. National Security Agency.

FBI - U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

MI5 - British domestic counter-intelligence and security agency. MI5 is similar to the FBI

MI6 - British foreign intelligence service. James Bond is the most famous MI6 operative.

GCHQ - Government Communications Headquarters, the U.K.’s security organization responsible for providing signals intelligence (listening) to the government and military.

SIGINT - Signals intelligence. This means information gathering by picking up signals, either between people (COMINT) or electronic signals (ELINT).​

From the press release from the Democrats of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:

"Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to President Donald J. Trump, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and FBI Director James Comey requesting information about whether Lt. General Michael Flynn fully disclosed—as part of the security clearance and vetting process for his return to government—his communications with and payments from Russian agents, Turkish agents, or any other foreign agents, as well as his payments from foreign sources."

Guccifer 2.0, WikiLeaks, and Roger StoneTimeline: Hacking and the Trump Team

This timeline is not complete, but it gives an impression of the incidents and interactions that may be of interest during the House Intelligence Committee investigation into Russian hacking in the U.S presidential election, scheduled for March 20.

October 2011WikiLeaks announces an aggressive fundraising campaign - Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union has cut off 95% of their revenue.​This may be when Assange and WikiLeaks began a financial relationship with the Kremlin, to replace financing lost by the shutdown of financing from major U.S. sources. Most experts agree that, while the origins of WikiLeaks were not Kremlin-connected, the current version of WikiLeaks is definitely a Russian propaganda tool.

July 22, 2016WikiLeaks releases "over 2 publications 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments from the top of the US Democratic National Committee -- part one of our new Hillary Leaks series."

​July 22, 2016

August 5, 2016Roger Stone writes Breitbart article stating that Guccifer 2.0 is the hacker, not "the Russians."

August 9, 2016MediaIte reports: "Trump ally Roger Stone confirmed that he was in communication with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange about the controlled release of hacked Clinton documents."​August 9, 2016

August 14-16, 2016Roger Stone communicates with Guccifer 2.0 (now known to be a team of GRU hackers). Messages, as provided by Roger Stone, are attached at the end of the timeline.​August 21, 2016

​​October 1, 2016

​October 3, 2016

October 5, 2016Yevgeniy Nikulin is arrested in Prague.As reported in The Guardian October 19, 2016: "Czech police have arrested a Russian hacker suspected of cyber-attacks in the United States, officials said on Wednesday."

The indictment against Nikulin describes hacks to LinkedIn, DropBox, and Formspring in 2012.

October 7, 2016"Access Hollywood" tape released by NBC (either NBC News or “Today” show), which contained audio of Donald Trump describing assaulting women. It was clear as soon as the tape aired that this could be very damaging to the Trump campaign.

October 7, 2016Podesta emails released by Wikileaks

October 28, 2016According to the New York Times: "The presidential campaign was rocked on Friday after federal law enforcement officials said that emails pertinent to the closed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server were discovered on a computer belonging to Anthony D. Weiner, the estranged husband of a top Clinton aide."Anthony Weiner used Formspring as an application on the laptop on which the Clinton emails were found. He denied having used that computer since 2013.​November 4, 2016

​March 7, 2017Wikileaks releases what they say are thousands of internal CIA documents.​March 9, 2016Nigel Farage visits Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Buzzfeed News reported: "Approached by BuzzFeed News as he left to get into a car waiting round the corner, Farage said he couldn’t remember what he had been doing in the building. Asked specifically if he had gone to the Knightsbridge building to meet with Assange, Farage said: “I never discuss where I go or who I see.”

March 9, 2017Roger Stone tells Business Insider Stone told Business Insider "in an email late Thursday night that he had a private conversation on Twitter with the person, nicknamed Guccifer 2.0, and that the interaction was so 'brief and banal, I had forgotten it.'"

March 10, 2016Business Inside reports that Nigel Farage and Julian Assange have a longstanding relationship, and that "Farage has also advocated on behalf of Assange since WikiLeaks' involvement in the US presidential election."

​March 10-12, 2017

Roger Stone's purported private conversations with Guccifer 2.0 were published on his website, There has been no external verification of the document, so it is not included here..

The press release from the U.S. Justice Department, and the indictment against Nikulin, can be found here.

Vice President Mike Pence has a problem.​Yesterday Pence told Fox reporter Brett Baier that Thursday was the first day he heard that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was working as a lobbyist for the Turkish government while he was advising the Trump campaign and serving on the transition team.

Most Washington watchers had a pretty good idea about it on Election Day, when The Hill published an opinion piece by Flynn calling for the extradition of a Turkish cleric living in the U.S. The article was odd, especially given the timing and Flynn’s prominence during the Trump campaign. (During the campaign Flynn had led crowds in cheers of “Lock her up,” calling for Hillary Clinton’s imprisonment.)

Rachel Maddow had multiple stories on her MSNBC program featuring Flynn, at least on of which explained that Flynn was paid to speak at a Russian government-sponsored trip to Russia, in which he started a standing ovation for Vladimir Putin.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer asserted today that President Trump did not know that Mike Flynn was lobbying for Turkey, and referred to Flynn as a private citizen. (Flynn, as a lieutenant general, is not a private citizen.)

The Daily Caller (a conservative news site) published an article on November 11 describing Flynn’s commitment to the Turkish government.

Flynn made more than $500,000 from his agreement with Turkey, so it seems doubtful that it would have slipped his mind.

This week Flynn retroactively filed paperwork under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Willfully failing to file (retroactive does not count) is a felony.

Most damning for Pence, however, is that Representative Elijah Cummings, ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent a letter – addressed to Mike Pence, as head of the transition team – on November 18, raising questions about Flynn’s conflicts of interest.